Measuring Device That Can Sense Magnetic Field Strength

3/20/2018 9:13:02 AM

Scientists from the Institutes for Biomedical engineering with ETHZurich and the University of Zurich successfully created a method that can measure tiny magnetic field. For the process, the researchers used a magnetized water droplet inside a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner is a device that is used for medical imaging.

With the help of the method, the scientists were able to sense even the tiniest variations of the magnetic field strength within the droplet. Additionally, the changes were up to a trillion times smaller than the seven-tesla field strength of the MRI scanner used in the experiment. The scientists added that earlier it was possible to calculate such small variations in weak magnetic fields such as earth’s magnetic field. As per the measurement the magnetic field of the earth is just a few dozen microtesla.

Until now, it was possible only to measure such small variations in weak magnetic fields," says Klaas Prüssmann, Professor of Bioimaging at ETHZurich and the University of Zurich. For such kind of fields highly sensitive measurement methods are already able to notice variations of about a trillionth of the field strength, stated the scientists.